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Federal Minister of Justice Marco Buschmann: “This speeds up the promulgation process, creates transparency and saves resources”
Photo: IMAGO/Political Moments
No more paper: In Germany, laws and ordinances are to be published online in the future.
On Wednesday, the federal cabinet decided on a template from the Federal Ministry of Justice in order to move the announcement to the Internet from next year.
"This accelerates the proclamation system, creates transparency and saves resources," said Justice Minister Marco Buschmann (FDP).
»By eliminating paper-based subscriptions or individual editions of the Federal Law Gazette, a mountain of paper of up to 2.5 kilometers can be saved every year.«
There is already a digital version of the Federal Law Gazette on the bgbl.de website.
However, this is not a binding official version - this is only the paper version, which can only be obtained for a fee or viewed in libraries.
The new digital Federal Law Gazette will be "made available free of charge and barrier-free," emphasized the Ministry of Justice.
It can be “saved, printed out and used without restrictions”.
The digital version "accelerates the issuing process, improves access to official content and saves resources," the ministry also promises.
The constitution needs to be changed
"The reliability of authenticity and integrity is taken into account by high technical security precautions," the department emphasized at the same time.
Among other things, it is provided that »each number of the Federal Law Gazette must be provided with a qualified electronic seal in order to be able to check the authenticity and genuineness at any time«.
For the desired innovation, the Basic Law must be changed.
So far, Article 82 has said: "The laws that have come into being in accordance with the provisions of this Basic Law are issued by the Federal President after being countersigned and promulgated in the Federal Law Gazette."
The same plan was already in place at the end of 2018, announced by the then Federal Justice Minister Katarina Barley (SPD).
Even then, however, it was said that the first law could only be promulgated electronically in 2022, also because the contract with the Bundesanzeiger Verlag responsible for distribution was still valid.
The publishing house is part of the DuMont media group.
mboe/AFP